


The Wrong Tears

by eastaustraliancurrent



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Sibling fight, sometimes your emotions are too big so you have to fight your sibling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28212483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastaustraliancurrent/pseuds/eastaustraliancurrent
Summary: “You don’t get it, Mako,” Bolin mumbles one night, sprawled across the ratty old couch Toza decided he didn’t want anymore, his legs flung despairingly across Mako’s lap. “You don’t miss them the same as me.”
Relationships: Bolin & Mako (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: MMEU Winter Solstice Exchange 2020





	The Wrong Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meteor-sword (vaenire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaenire/gifts).



“You don’t get it, Mako,” Bolin mumbles one night, sprawled across the ratty old couch Toza decided he didn’t want anymore, his legs flung despairingly across Mako’s lap. “You don’t miss them the same as me.”

It hasn’t been a good night. It isn’t even an anniversary, not a birthday, a deathday, a holiday, no occasion for them to miss what they don’t have. It was just one of those nights where they only managed to tangle each other up in the other’s grief, tangled on the couch in a raw, aching heap.

For a moment, there’s nothing. Just a moment to process what Bolin said, and then Mako is lifting his hands away from where they’d rested on his brother’s boney legs so he doesn’t accidentally set them on fire. Bolin doesn’t notice, still staring blearily out the window. “What,” Mako bites out, “the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?”

Bolin glances at Mako, then his reddened eyes narrow and he’s propping himself up on an elbow, eyebrows furrowing. “You know what it means,” he says, and there’s an edge to his words, softened by the rasp in his throat, but an edge nonetheless. Their electricity went out hours ago so it’s only the moonlight illuminating his face, its youth, its thinness. He’s filled out some since Toza started helping them out, but he’s still far too skinny to look like a normal kid.

Mako stares at Bolin, inarticulate in the face of his brother’s accusation. It feels almost like a betrayal, the way Mako’s chest tightens, his fists hot when he clenches them tight tight tight. Bolin pushes himself to sit up properly against the arm of the couch, sliding his legs from Mako’s lap, and the moment he does Mako is standing, a painful energy driving him to his feet. He stands there, coiled, waiting.

Bolin looks almost confused, but there’s that familiar flicker of anger as he watches his brother move away from him. “What am I supposed to think, Mako?” he goes on. “You never… I can’t remember you ever…” Bolin trails off.

“What are you _talking_ about?” Mako’s voice aches in his throat. His scarf feels suffocating around his neck but he doesn’t want to take it off for fear that the heat in his hands will damage it. He swallows hard. “I never _what?_ Just because I’m not a baby about it doesn’t mean I don’t _miss_ them.”

“I’m not a baby for crying,” Bolin protests. He glares and Mako can already see new tears welling up in his eyes. Mako scoffs and Bolin rallies, jumping off the couch, square to his brother. “Just because you’re too mean to cry doesn’t mean _I_ am.”

Mako splutters. “You think I’m _mean?_ ”

Bolin tilts his chin up, but the defiant action is diminished when all it does is catch the light so Mako can better see the tear stains on his cheeks, the red flush rimming his eyes. “Yeah!” Bolin says. “You’re _mean,_ Mako. You never cry about Mommy and Daddy and you never let me go with you on your secret missions and you hate Pabu! That’s _mean._ ”

Mako’s chest tightens. “You’re _wrong,_ ” he chokes out, and it isn’t fair, the vastness of the things he can’t say, the words too heavy for his brother’s skinny shoulders, the emotions that trip over his tongue and fall dead in his throat. It isn’t fair that he’s stuck with the wrong emotions while Bolin gets all the right ones, but it’s better than the alternative, and it’s not _fair_ that the only alternative is a different type of pain than the one they already have.

Bolin’s eyes blaze as he glares at Mako, squeezes his fists tight in that stubborn streak he’s had since he was a baby and refusing his pacifier, and even _that_ hurts to remember because he knows Bolin doesn’t can’t remember something as trivial and as painful as the love that was easily theirs, their parents picking up the pacifier each and every time Bolin dashed it to the ground. Sometimes Mako wonders if that’s the reason they came out so different, because Bolin gets to forget and Mako never can.

“ _You’re_ wrong,” Bolin says back. “You’re _mean._ ”

The words land like a fist to his ribs and Mako’s breathless because he _is_ wrong. He doesn’t mind being mean, he _needs_ to be mean, but it’s his baby brother saying the words and looking at him like that, like he’s the last person in the world he’d want to love. There’s a block in his throat and all he can do is gape at Bolin, still standing there with his fists tight and his chin jutted and looking every inch the scrawny kid he is, and it’s not fair because Mako _has_ to be mean so Bolin can be nice. It’s not fair but that’s how it is and, fuck, isn’t Mako allowed to be mean? Doesn’t he deserve it?

Bolin’s hand is resting above the pocket in his pants where Mako knows he always keeps his rocks, spare ammunition, just in case. Mako’s gaze darts there, then back up to Bolin’s eyes, still hard and angry, and it’s that small moment, the challenge in Bolin’s eyes that lets Mako launch himself at his brother, a strangled yell bursting from his chest.

Bolin meets him halfway, arms coming up for a painful embrace as they crash into the floor, and he squeezes tight before rolling them both over so he’s above Mako, the fingers of one hand gripping Mako’s shoulder while the others curl into a fist. Mako twists around until Bolin slips off to the side, and he’s still yelling as he scrabbles at his brother’s back, everything screaming out of him in a need to grapple and scrape and hurt as much as every day in this city does. Bolin’s crying again, mouth open in stupid heaving sobs even as he rips Mako’s head back with a yank on his hair, and Mako hates him for it, hates that it’s so _easy_ for him, and he snarls as he shoves a fist into Bolin’s stomach. Bolin gasps and then they’re rolling again and Mako’s head smacks the ground and Bolin gets an elbow on Mako’s throat and he chokes on everything, everything welling up in his throat and gagging him. There’s fire in his brother’s eyes when he brings a knee down _hard,_ right into Mako’s diaphragm.

His chest empties at the impact and he gasps, shoving Bolin off as he scrabbles away, convulsing for air. Tears sting in the corners of his eyes and they aren’t even the right tears, he just can’t breathe is all, and he can hear Bolin still crying somewhere behind him as he kneels on the floor and chokes on air that isn’t enough. His lungs burn and he savors it until he has the breath to spit the words out to his brother, weak and broken and leaving his chest like the oxygen did from his body, unwilling and unstoppable: “You think I _like_ being like this?”

Bolin makes a small, strangled noise, and Mako doesn’t look at him, like seeing his reaction would make the admission real. The hug then takes him by surprise, knocks him into the ground again, his teeth clicking together painfully and Bolin is squeezing too tight, fingernails digging into Mako’s shoulders. It hurts, but it’s Bolin, and Mako wraps his arms around his brother and gasps into his neck. Bolin’s crying right in his ear and it’s loud and wet and annoying and Mako squeezes him to the point of pain just to feel him close. His eyes ache, dry, so he stares up at the ceiling while his brother trembles above him, doesn’t blink until he feels the burn of the wrong tears again.


End file.
